


Jedi School Art Class

by radioactivesaltghoul



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Crack, Gen, Luke just wants to bring the padawans on a nice field trip, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but Ben is Ben, jedi academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-19 23:55:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19982653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioactivesaltghoul/pseuds/radioactivesaltghoul
Summary: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a Jedi master attempted to give his padawans an art lesson.As usual when Ben Solo was involved, it didn't go according to plan.





	Jedi School Art Class

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jessa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessa/gifts).



> Jessa sent [this video](https://youtu.be/wj84tfS7ag4) my way while discussing Kylo Ren and art therapy, and I thought “okay well now I have to write about Luke Skywalker teaching an art class at Jedi school with teenage edgelord Ben Solo”

In retrospect, Luke should have seen something like this coming when he told the padawans they were going to be taking a day off from normal Jedi school classes and doing an art lesson instead.

He’d gotten the idea from a forum for educators on the holonet. Sure, he wasn’t a normal educator, but there were certain tips he’d found useful from this forum in the past. For example, a good way to make time for himself to sneak during class was to take the padawans, split them into three groups, put each group in a different room, and give them some bullshit teambuilding task to work on for a while. Each group thought that he was dealing with one of the others, giving him an unexpected kaf break. The users on that forum were full of good advice and ideas, and Luke had learned a long time ago that the best way to break through whatever the educator equivalent of writer’s block was involved doing a search on that forum. Today’s post of choice was about taking students off-campus for the day to do some outdoor painting. The weather had been nice lately, and everyone had been so cooped up. Ben, in particular, was going through a rough time lately. The kid just had so many damn _feelings_ , and Luke was not equipped to handle them.

So, art class. Outdoor art class, away from the temple for the day. It had been a solid plan.

Luke just hadn’t considered the Ben factor.

Master and padawans set up their easels alongside the edge of a cliff, looking out onto an abandoned village on the seaside. It was a beautiful view, and Luke found himself getting excited about the whole project as everyone set up their easels. He distributed the paints and paintbrushes, making sure to dole them out evenly. It wasn’t easy to get one’s hands on art supplies these days, but when you were Luke Skywalker, twin brother of Leia Organa, you could make things happen pretty quickly.

“Stop for a moment to take in the scene around you,” he instructed. “Don’t worry about painting yet. Just breathe for a minute or two.” He waited until a Jedi-appropriate amount of time had passed, then encouraged the padawans to start painting.

It went well at first. There was some whispering and nervous chattering—none of them had had much instruction in the visual arts, so they weren’t really sure where to begin—but after a few minutes, everyone relaxed and started to enjoy themselves. 

Ben was being unusually vocal about it, Luke noted. His nephew was normally pretty quiet in class, saving all of his commentary for the more physical training exercises that the padawans participated in, but he seemed to be having a great time narrating his own thought process. Luke stood up, wanting to check in on his nephew under the guise of seeing how all of the padawans were getting on. As he got closer to the end of the row, where Ben’s easel was set up, he started to make out the words more clearly. “I’m adding more blue to the water,” he said. It was unclear if he was speaking to himself or not, but no matter. He wasn’t saying anything strange, which was Luke’s main concern.

Feeling slightly more placated, Luke walked back down to his own seat and resumed his painting, but he was up on his feet again a few minutes later when Ben’s muttering started to distract the padawan sitting next to him. “I need black for the windows,” Ben said, pulling a tube of paint out of the box he was sharing with his classmate.

“Ben,” Luke said in a low tone.

“Black,” Ben repeated, louder this time.

“Ben.”

“Black!” He dumped a glob of black paint onto the palette and started swiping the brush across the canvas in long strokes. “Black!” he shouted again. “Black in the sky! Black in the sea!” He struck the canvas again. “Black, like the position of night that leads us into the valley of despair!” He stood up, kicking the now-smeared canvas over as he kept screaming.

“Ben!” Luke snapped, but it was no use. His nephew was beyond reason right now, shouting about all things black. _For kriff’s sake,_ Luke thought. He should have seen something like this coming. “I think it’s time we go back to the temple now,” he said to the other students, who were frozen in place as they all watched Ben shouting up at the sky, shaking his canvas.

“The gulls have plucked out my eyes!” Ben shrieked, collapsing to his knees suddenly. Luke held his breath. Was that it? As far as Ben’s, uh, _episodes_ went, this one was fairly—

“We crawl on our knees towards our doom,” Ben wailed, crawling off away from the rest of the padawans. 

_Okay,_ Luke thought. _The episode is not over yet._ He debated chasing after his nephew, who was still crawling away from the group, before deciding that it was probably best to just let Ben burn this out of his system. He turned back to the other padawans, who were all staring at him. “What are you looking at?” he said, suddenly in a rush to resume where the art class had left off. “Go back to painting. Breathe. Be at one with the art…”

**Author's Note:**

> true story there actually was a teacher at my high school who would put his students into groups of three and then put each group in a different room while he completely fucked off somewhere for most of the class period. we never figured out where he went, but then again, we were afraid of the answer.
> 
> i am on tumblr [@radioactivesaltghoul](https://radioactivesaltghoul.tumblr.com/)


End file.
